Polish archaeologists studying the ancient city of Porphyreon in Lebanon have pieced together the broken parts of ceramic heads to remake what they think are statues of goddesses. One of the 2,400-...
Throughout history, women have always been healers. They were pharmacists, cultivating healing herbs and exchanging the secrets of their uses. They were also nurses, counselors, midwives who traveled...
While you’re biting the heads off your chocolate bunnies this weekend, you might wonder how rabbits became so central to our Easter celebrations. It’s tempting to assume that because there’s no...
When the Roman conquerors encountered the world of Gaulish deities and traditions, they tried to understand it in their own religious terms. Seeing a cult of gods and goddesses, they sought to find...
Archaeologists working in Luxor have unearthed a magnificent statue of King Amenhotep III of ancient Egypt and several statues and statue parts of the cat goddess Sekhmet meant to protect him. The...
Before the first moon landing in 1969, the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e was mentioned in the Apollo 11 Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription between the Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas and the Apollo...
Though she was one of the most renowned goddesses in her day, the motherly, wise Cybele has long been over-shadowed in the mythology of ancient Greece by the later pre-Olympian goddesses, Rhea, Gaia...
Apples have a prominent place in world mythology, and are often associated with paradise, magic, knowledge and sensual experience. Legendary magician Merlin was said to carry a silver bough from an...
A team of Turkish archaeologists have announced the fascinating underwater discovery of a large terracotta sculpture of a bare-footed woman wearing a long dress. Could these be Aphrodite’s legs...
A goddess of ecstatic and chthonic reproductive mysteries, Cybele was the primary mother goddess of ancient Anatolia, and Phrygia's only known goddess thus far. She was a "Mistress of Animals", "...
The Descent of Inanna (known also as ‘Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld / Underworld’) is a piece of work in the literary corpus of ancient Mesopotamia. This story, which was originally written in...
A team of Egyptian archaeologists excavating the Mortuary Temple of King Amenhotep III in Luxor, a city in southern Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate, have brought to the surface an...
Ahuitzotl was a tlatoani (meaning ‘speaker’) of the city of Tenochtitlan, and the eighth ruler of the Aztec Empire. This emperor reigned from 1486 AD to 1502 AD, a period which is regarded by some...
One of the oldest goddesses in Egyptian mythology is Nut, the goddess of the sky ( nut means ‘sky’ in the ancient Egyptian language). It was believed that that the sky is, in fact, a star-covered...
Some people say it is not real, but try to tell them that bad spirits just entered their houses. They will feel insane and try to ignore it, but the unpleasant feeling will stay. In this case people...
The line between goddess and witch or witch and saint is very thin in ancient history. One example of this confusion is the legendary story of Aradia – a woman whose life has been explored in neo-...
Even today, giving birth can be one of the most dangerous moments in a woman's life. In ancient times it would have been even more so. Matriarchal societies would have tried to ensure the safest...
The Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, has a very distinctive image in classical arts. In 458 BCE, the playwright Aeschylus, in his play Agamemnon , used the name of Aphrodite to denote “beauty, charm...
Researchers working in Poggio Colla, a key ancient Etruscan settlement in Italy, have found a 120-character inscription, described as one of the most significant Etruscan discoveries in decades. The...
When the Romans entered Egypt they saw a land of magnificent temples, impressive and monumental statues, and symbolism they did not understand. The Greeks felt the same when they explored the country...
The warrior god Thor is well known from Old Norse literature. He has become a popular cultural icon, but his wife seems to be largely forgotten these days. However, Sif was once recognized as an...
Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, in his book Proserpina , calls himself “the gentle and happy scholar of flowers”. A large part of his work is an attempt to connect nature, art and society. To...
Slavic mythology is one of the less appreciated of all the ancient folklore traditions. The myths grew in the hearts of the tribes of a great civilization, and in the minds of people whose lives were...
It is not always easy to read the stories of real people from the artifacts they left behind. This is especially true if they lived 5,000 years ago. However, the story of a remarkable woman from that...